Doreen Bracken and Tim Bustin have beaten off tough competition from 275 others to win first prize in the My Hinckley 2011 photo contest.

It is the first time The Hinckley Times has run the competition which was sponsored by Jessops who donated £250 of vouchers to each winner.

Hinckley Times former chief photographer Jim Tomlinson was the judge of the awards.

It took many hours of deliberation for him to reach his decision such was the quality of the entries.

The winner of the adult section is Doreen Bracken of Burton Hastings with her picture entitled Sunny Days and Ice Cream in Hinckley.

Jim said: “A moment captured of what sunny days in Hinckley are all about. It is just such a nice bright happy picture.

“I just like the way the subject is nice and sharp and the background is slightly out of focus so it makes the young lad pop out the picture.

“A very well-captured image.”

Doreen was delighted with her win. She said: “I am always taking pictures and everyone keeps getting fed up with me. Even the dog turns away from me now.

“I like taking pictures whenever we go out and I just like to try and get better.”

It was a tough choice for Jim to make. He said some of the others on the shortlist were also excellent and he particularly liked Trevor Wain’s entry of Burbage Common and Paul Smart’s picture taken on Bosworth Water Park of two ducks alongside participants of a triathlon.

Jim said: “It was good so see so many different types of pictures entered from people of all ages.

“The standard of entry was extremely strong and I hope to see the competition return next year.”

We also had fantastic entries in our under 18 section which was won by 16-year-old Tim Bustin of Featherston Drive in Burbage.

Again it was a difficult choice with more than 70 entries for Jim to select from.

Jim said: “Tim’s picture has been created in the camera rather than afterwards in Photoshop.

“So for me it is a photographer’s picture. The camera he used is a bit of a point and shoot one so he has done well to get such a technical shot. He has had to think about the photograph rather than the technology.”

Jim said: “The junior section was particularly tough. Alex’s picture is very clever and I am trying to work out how it was done.

“It is very impressive. It is a great picture which had a lot of thought put into it.

“I also love the meerkat picture by Elysia, it just makes you laugh looking at it.”

Hinckley Times editor Simon Holden said: “This was a great competition which appealed to so many different people. We had entries from someone as young as three years old as well as a young man in his 80s.

“Even though it caused our IT department a lot of problems, with so many pictures clogging up our email inbox, I can’t wait to run it again next year.”

If anyone who sent in a hard copy of their picture wants to collect it, they are welcome to do so from our offices in Brunel Road.